GREY MUTTER lance fredericks When you know you’re dead

GETTING away with it – what a sweet concept. Let’s face it, the slim possibility of getting away with an offence seems to make the committing of the offence even more tantalising.

It seems as if it’s a propensity of the immature to push the boundaries of wrongdoing, with the feint hope that they will not face the consequences of their bad choices.

For example, who could forget the times that your parents would make the fatal mistake of hauling you over the coals in front of your “cool” buddies? Being made to look uncool by your parents in front of cool buddies was not on, and there had to be retaliation, some sort of rebellion … there just HAD to be.

One option was to – when the adult was not looking, of course – roll your eyes so that your friends could see that your submissive posture was just an act, and that you had not lost any of your coolness.

The other more daring, and therefore more popular rebellion, would be to pull your face, shake your head and mimic the adult in a squeaky voice.

Of course in both cases you’d have to know the shortest route to your foxhole, because if the “scolder”, from the corner of their eye, caught the “scoldee” mocking them, then Armageddon would be brought forward a couple of centuries. To be honest, there would be no place to hide.

It didn’t help when you were caught to have your friends singing along in chorus: “Ja-ja-jaaa, pakkies is los! Ja-ja-jaaa, pakkies is los!” (Loose translation: “Oh dear, you’re dead!”).

So being the clown at school was generally fun, but ask those school clowns about the walk to the principal’s office down the school’s walkways … with everybody shaking their hands and singing that foreboding dirge: “Ja-ja-jaaa, pakkies is los”.

You knew for sure that you were doomed when you heard that tune.

A few days ago someone I know received a speeding ticket in the mail. He was caught on camera doing 73km/h in a 60km zone.

Of course, being the supportive friend that I usually am, I sung a tune of comfort to him. “Ja-ja-jaaa, pakkies is los!”

He gave me a sick smile and told me what really bothered him about the fine. He said that he’d like to do the right thing and pay the fine, but the due date is in the middle of the month. Ordinarily he’s earned enough that he could afford to (grudgingly) part with the R200.

However, in the past few months VAT has increased, as well as fuel and with it prices everywhere have simply rocketed.

He told me that while at one time he was barely managing to make it month to month, lately he’s been living from hand-to-mouth, and this after cutting out luxuries.

He says that he’s finding it almost impossible to cope financially.

I thought about him yesterday when I read about the proposed power tariff increase that the

Sol Plaatje Municipality is due to implement in July. If my friend is struggling to pay a once-off R200 fine that he actually wants to pay, how is he going to manage a monthly R260 that he feels is (according to him) “daylight robbery”?

Already Kimberlites (for some obscure reason) are paying more for their electricity that people in other parts of the country. We, by the way, pay more for our fuel too; according to the AA the price of 93 octane unleaded is R15.03 at the coast, and R15.54 per litre inland. We are paying R15.88 (probably because refineries are at the coast, who knows?).

Ultimately to me it is a concern when decisions that affect the man in the street – who’s living hand-to-mouth, and those who are not even making it payday to payday – are made by those whose car repayments, fuel bills, rent and a few other monthly costs are often subsidised by the very people who are suffering because of their decisions.

And, alarmingly, they seem to be getting away with it.